Circumstances of Revelation
Place: Medina, after the Hijrah, as its subject matter indicates. It was apparently revealed piecemeal, not all at once. → Introduction
Time: In the first half of the Prophet's life at Medina, as most of its verses indicate; Sūrah al-Baqarah, the first sūrah revealed at Medina, came before it. → Commentary on verse 24
Order: Some (Majmaʿ al-bayān) held that two verses are Meccan: verse 58 (Allah commands you to make over trusts to their owners) and the last verse, 176. Al-Mizan's view: verse 58 is clearly connected with the verses before it, and verse 176 sets out a law of inheritance, which was ordained at Medina. Verse 127 was revealed after the verses on women at the beginning of the sūrah, when people asked the Prophet about the laws regarding women. Al-Barāʾ reports that verse 176 was the last verse to be revealed; Majmaʿ al-bayān explains its name, "the verse of the summer": of the two verses on kalālah, the one near the beginning of the sūrah came down in winter and this one in summer. → Introduction to verses 44–58 · Commentary on verse 127 · Narrations on verse 176
Verses 7–12, inheritance: ʿIkrimah, al-Suddī and others report that these verses came down when widows and daughters, among them Umm Kuḥḥah, complained to the Prophet that the men of the family had taken the whole estate, as was the custom before Islam; Jābir b. ʿAbd Allāh reports that verse 11 came down when he asked the Prophet, during an illness, what to do with his property. Al-Mizan: several reported occasions may combine for one verse, the verse may go beyond them, and an event may simply have coincided with the revelation. → Narrations on verses 7–10 · Narrations on verses 11–14
Verses 19–22: Imam al-Bāqir and Sunni reports say that before Islam a man could inherit the marriage of a dead relative's widow by throwing his cloth over her; when Muhassan, son of Abū Qays b. al-Aslat, did this to his father's widow and then neglected her, she complained to the Prophet, and verse 22 (marry not women whom your fathers married) was revealed; all or most of the reports say verse 19 (it is not lawful for you that you should inherit women against their will) was revealed about this event. Al-Mizan: the event certainly happened, and the verses are related to it and to that custom, but the wording of verse 19 does not agree with the claim that it was revealed about it. → Narrations
Verse 24: Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī reports that and all married women except those whom your right hands possess was revealed about the women captured at Awṭās, whose polytheist husbands were elsewhere; Al-Mizan: the tradition is weak and restricts the verse without grounds. Of a similar report about a woman named Maʿādhah, he says such stories are the narrators' attempts to fit events to verses, not the real reasons of revelation. Al-Mizan's view on the rest of the verse: istimtāʿ in it means mutʿah marriage, a common practice among the Muslims when the verse was revealed; the claims that it was abrogated by the Qur'an or by the Prophet contradict one another, and the only point on which the reports agree is that ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb prohibited it during his reign. → Commentary on verse 24 · Narrations
Verse 43 (do not go near prayer when you are intoxicated): Al-Mizan's view: of the five verses on intoxicants, this one was revealed after () and () and before () and (); a prohibition limited to prayer time could not follow the definite prohibition in (). Its place among the surrounding verses may be explained as a parenthesis, revealed for an urgent need while a series of verses was coming down. A narration from Abū al-Ḥasan says it came before liquor was prohibited; Al-Mizan: this must mean before the prohibition was clearly stated, since the Meccan verse () had already forbidden sin, which includes intoxicants. → Introduction · Narrations
Verses 44–57, the Jews: Al-Mizan's view: these verses, like verses 36–42, were revealed about the Jews, who posed as well-wishers of the believers while urging them to withhold their spending. Reports name individuals, such as Rifāʿah b. Zayd b. al-Tābūt; the ʿAllāmah regards these as attempts to apply the verses to known persons. On verse 51 (and say of those who disbelieve: "These are better guided in the path than those who believe"), Jābir reports that Kaʿb b. al-Ashraf went to Mecca and told Quraysh that their religion was better than Muḥammad's; Al-Mizan: of the various reports this is the soundest, and all agree that some Jews judged in favor of Quraysh against the Prophet. → Commentary on verses 44–45 · Commentary on verse 52 · Narrations
Verse 48 (Allah does not forgive that anything should be associated with Him): Al-Kalbī reports that it was revealed when Waḥshī, the killer of Ḥamzah, and his companions wrote to the Prophet from Mecca asking whether they could be forgiven. Al-Mizan: this report is certainly a forgery, made to glorify Waḥshī. On the reports from Ibn ʿUmar and Abū Mijlaz that the verse came down after (), when a man asked about polytheism, he notes that () speaks of forgiveness through repentance while this verse deals with something other than repentance, so there is no contradiction between the two and neither abrogates or restricts the other. → Narrations
Verse 59, those vested with authority: Narrations from the Imams say the verse was revealed about ʿAlī and the Imams after him; Mujāhid's Tafsīr says it was revealed when the Prophet left ʿAlī as his deputy in Medina. Al-Mizan notes that such traditions from the Ahl al-Bayt are very numerous. → Commentary on verse 59 · Narrations · Key Debate
Verses 77 and 83: Ibn ʿAbbās and Qatādah report that ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAwf and others asked in Mecca for permission to fight and were told to forgive, but when fighting was ordered after the Hijrah they held back, and verse 77 was revealed. Al-Mizan rejects the view that these verses are about the Jews or the hypocrites, since the context does not allow it. He holds that verse 83 and the verses around it fit the events of the Lesser Badr, when Abū Sufyān sent Nuʿaym b. Masʿūd al-Ashjaʿī to Medina to frighten the Muslims out of going to Badr. → Narrations on verse 77 · Commentary on verse 78 · Commentary on verse 83
Verses 92–94: ʿIkrimah reports that verse 92 (killing a believer by mistake) was revealed after ʿAyyāsh killed al-Ḥārith b. Yazīd at al-Ḥarrah as he came to emigrate to the Prophet, not knowing he had become a Muslim; Al-Mizan: this is more probable, and fits the time of the sūrah's revelation better, than the reports that place the killing at the conquest of Mecca. Tafsīr al-Qummī says verse 94 was revealed when, after Khaybar, Usāmah b. Zayd killed Mirdās b. Nahīk al-Fadakī although he had declared the testimony of faith; other reports name Miqdād, Abū al-Dardāʾ or Muḥlim b. Juthāmah. → Narrations
Verses 97–100: Ibn ʿAbbās, ʿIkrimah and others report that verse 97 was revealed about Meccans who had accepted Islam secretly and were killed among the polytheists at Badr, and verse 100 about a sick man, named variously, who set out from Mecca to emigrate and died on the way. Al-Mizan: these are attempts to apply the verses to suitable incidents, though good applications; the verses describe the Muslims' condition between the Hijrah and the conquest of Mecca, and the reports show there were hypocrites in Mecca before and after the Hijrah. → Commentary on verse 100 · Narrations
Verses 105–126: Al-Mizan's view: these verses form one passage about a single incident: probably someone committed a theft and accused an innocent person, and the thief's relatives pressed the Prophet to judge in their favor, until the verses exonerated the accused. The verses squarely fit the narrated event about the Banū Ubayriq, who stole food and arms from the uncle of Qatādah b. al-Nuʿmān and blamed another, though he adds that such reports of occasions are most of the time attempts to fit stories to pertinent verses. Another report says the thief blamed a Jew. → Introduction · Commentary on verse 105 · Narrations
A summary prepared from Tafsīr al-Mīzān: where and when the sūrah was revealed, and the occasions reported for its verses, with the ʿAllāmah's view of them. Each point links to the full discussion.